Frequency
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: This is crazy. Her twin brother is not a murderer. Frankie finds out what her brother did the night of the Snow Ball, and can't understand why. Two-parter, now COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Will be a two-parter. Takes place after the events of #SorryNotSorry.**

 **I don't own Degrassi.**

" _ **I'll never leave / I'll always stay / I swear on all / That I keep safe"**_

 _ **\- "Tree To Grow", The Lone Bellow**_

 ** _OOO_**

 _As soon as people find out Frankie is a twin, their first question is always, "What's it like?"_

 _It's a hard question to answer, because she's never know anything different. How do you explain being born with brown eyes or dark skin? How do you explain being born left-handed or with a lazy eye, or in the summer instead of fall?_

 _Most people think it's like having a built-in best friend, someone you always have on your side. Like a sleepover that never ends. Many wonder if Frankie wished for an identical twin instead, so they could play tricks on people, like The Parent Trap or Mary-Kate and Ashley._

 _One thing most people don't think to call it is claustrophobic, and if Frankie thought she could explain it in a way that made sense, that's the word she would use. She would tell them that her brother's in her head, except that's not really it; at least, not in any psychic way. It's more like a radio frequency only she and Hunter are tuned into, like a buzz, or a hum, a static only they can understand, that keeps the two of them connected_ _. It's an extension of herself that no one else seems to have or notice, but she can't imagine not having. It would feel like having only one eye, or not being able to taste._

 _She can't explain the sensation she has sometimes, when it comes to her twin. Their mother always said that when they were babies, Hunter would only sleep if they put him in Frankie's crib, so they could sleep next to each other. When they took tennis lessons as kids, Frankie always knew exactly where her brother was on the court without needing to look. If one of them fell off their bike or slammed their hand in a door, the other would cry out. Whenever they played hide-and-seek, it didn't matter how creative Frankie's hiding place was, Hunter always found her in a matter of minutes._

 _Miles always hated playing that game with them when they were younger. He complained that the twins peeked, except they never had to. They always managed to find each other's hiding places._

 _These days, the feeling she has isn't as strong as it was when they were little. But it's still there, natural as blood or a heartbeat. If Frankie has a stomach ache, Hunter will start complaining he feels sick. Hunter will say he has a headache, and Frankie's own skull will start to throb. When she turns her head, she knows where to find him; when she closes her eyes, she knows where he'll be. Like Marco Polo, except she doesn't need to shout to find him. She already knows._

 _Hunter has the same eerie sense, too. They've never really talked about it, and Frankie never gave it much thought, but it's always been there. Always been a part of them._

 _It's not just they're in each other's blood. They're in each other's nerves and minds; each other's DNA._

 _Their whole lives, they've been on each other's radars._

I.

She catches Miles with his car keys in hand as he's halfway out the door.

"Wait," Frankie says, startling him. "I'm coming, too."

Miles frowns. "Frankie –"

She gets right in his face and glares at him.

"I'm the only person in our family Hunter doesn't currently hate," she says. "You need me. I can't just sit on my ass and do nothing."

Miles still looks hesitant, so Frankie lowers her voice.

"He's your little brother," she says, "but he's my twin."

That settles it. Miles nods, hovering in the doorway as Frankie grabs her coat and boots. She follows her big brother to the car, and they head off into the night.

 **II.**

"So Dad's at the police station?"

She sees Miles nod in the front seat. "Yeah. Mom said he's throwing his weight around. They've donated a ton of money to the police, so she thinks everyone will listen to him."

Frankie stares at the clock on the car stereo, blinking the time. Hunter's only been missing for half an hour, and it feels like he's been gone for days.

Her phone buzzes, startling her, and when she glances down at the screen her stomach lurches with the hope that it might be Hunter. Then she remembers he doesn't have it with him, and her heart sinks when she sees the text is just from Lola.

 _U think I would look hot with a belly button ring? Tiny thinks so =) Think it would hurt?_

Frankie sighs. She's about to stuff her phone in her pocket when it buzzes again, this time from Shay.

 _OMG! Baz just texted me! He wants to get gelato tmrw afternoon! What do I say? 911 NEED BOY ADVICE!_

Her finger hovers over the keyboard for a moment, about to type a quick _sorry, can't talk now response_ to both of them. Instead, she shoves the phone deep into the pocket of her heavy winter coat.

On the very long list of things Frankie can't think about right now, Shay and Lola's boy-craziness issues aren't even on the page. She can't imagine telling them about what's going on:

 _Guys, sorry I can't deal with your crap right now. I just found out my missing brother bought a gun to school and might be a mass-murdering psychopath. Please direct your boy problems elsewhere._

It's too surreal to even think those thoughts; she can't even say them out loud to herself. Forget telling Shay and Lola. This is too big to talk about with anyone. It's too insane to get other people involved.

Besides, that life doesn't even feel real at the moment. Shay and Lola, Tiny and Baz, homework and classes and pop quizzes. Jonah, and whatever may or may not be happening between them lately, since the night of the Snow Ball.

It all seems so far away, like it belongs to someone else's life. Forget Degrassi; nothing exists right now except the car rolling forward, Miles at the wheel and her in the backseat, marooned on some frozen pitch-black island, trying to find Hunter in the endless ocean of darkness.

 **III.**

They stop at Winston's house, and he climbs in the passenger seat beside Miles. They haven't spoken since the night of the Snow Ball and Winston hardly glances at Frankie as he climbs in, but she doesn't care about her ex-boyfriend feeling awkward right now. She doesn't care about her ex-boyfriend, period.

"So, any ideas?" he asks. "Or do we just drive around in circles trying to find him?"

"You have a better plan?" Miles says, his voice tense. "Cause I'd love to hear it."

Winston sighs. "No, man, I don't. But he couldn't have gotten too far, right? I mean, he's on foot, he's not wearing a coat, he doesn't have any warm clothes on…doubt he'd make it as far as the school in this weather."

"Why would he go back to the school?" Frankie says.

Her voice comes out sharper than she meant it to, and Winston turns toward the backseat, scowling at her.

"Okay, Franks," he says. She winces a little at the use of her old nickname; it's never been said with so much dripping sarcasm before. "You're the expert. Where does a psychopath go when he has no friends?"

"Don't call my brother that," she snaps.

Winston's face turns red, his lip jutting out. "What the hell else am I supposed to call him?"

"His name is usually a good place to start," Frankie shoots back.

She glares back at him with as much fury as she can muster, but she finds she doesn't have much left.

Besides. If she knew the answer to his question, they wouldn't be driving all around the city looking for him on a snowy night, would they.

Winston is still waiting for her answer, his face narrowed in a pout, and she finds she can't be angry with him anymore.

"I don't know," she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut.

When she opens them, Winston is still looking at her, except now he looks a lot less pissed and way more worried. His arm is awkwardly half-raised, and for a moment Frankie wonders if he's going to reach over the console and take her hand.

Instead, he turns back to the front seat and turns to Miles, who is tapping his fingers against the steering wheel while the car idles at a red light.

"Did you check all your social media stuff? Winston asks. "Has anyone posted anything on Facerange that might help us?"

Frankie shakes her head. "And I've been looking at everybody I follow at school. Same with Twitter and Hastygram. Everything came up empty."

"You think we should post something about it?" Winston asks. "Like, I don't know, saying to call you or Frankie if they see Hunter?"

Miles rubs a hand over his jaw; it's a movement their dad does when he's thinking about something, and it startles Frankie to see the identical motion from her brother.

"I don't think it's a good idea to get other people involved," he says. "For now, we keep this between us."

"Dude, right now is the time we NEED to get other people involved." Winston argues. "What if someone gets hurt?"

Frankie doesn't understand the question – how could someone else get hurt by Hunter running around in a snowstorm wearing nothing but skinny jeans and a sweater? He doesn't even have his phone with him; it's not like he can call someone to pick him up. Who would he even call, anyway?

In the rearview, Frankie sees Miles shake his head. "He didn't take the gun. It's still locked in my dad's case."

Frankie's head spins.

 _The gun?_

 _Where would Hunter –_

Then it hits her.

Dad's gun. The gun Dad kept in his safe downstairs. The gun that she'd been told a million times as a little girl to never, ever, _ever_ touch. Nobody but Dad was allowed to touch the gun, not even Mom; she never would anyway, because she hated guns and argued with Dad about keeping one in the house with three small children, but Dad always argued that he had the only key, so it wasn't as if Miles or the twins could get their hands on it and hurt themselves. He kept it in the downstairs office, the one that had been shut up and unused since the day he moved out.

That was what Hunter must have brought to the Snow Ball, Frankie realizes. Their father's gun.

How had she not connected the dots before? How else would Hunter get a loaded weapon?

She turns over the facts in her head, slow as sludge: her twin brother brought their father's gun to the Snow Ball. He brought it because he wanted to shoot people.

Because he wanted to kill people.

Her vision greys at the edges; for a second, she feels like she'll pass out, or throw up, or both at the same time.

From the front seat, the boys continue to talk, their voices barely heard over the roar of blood rushing straight to her head.

"Maybe we should call the people on…you know, that list?" she hears Winston suggests. "Maya, Tristan, Zig? I mean, Hunter's wanted to hurt them before."

Miles shakes his head. "No, no, bad idea. They wouldn't know where Hunter is anyway, and they'd wonder why THEY were being called. They know he hates them. And Maya's already pressing charges against him; if she thinks he's coming for her, she'll just freak out."

"She SHOULD freak out, dude," Winston says. "The person who trolled her and then brought a gun to school to shoot her is out there somewhere, and we don't know what he might do."

Miles doesn't respond to that. Frankie's vision swims again, and she has to grab onto the back of Winston's seat and take a couple of deep breaths to stop herself from being sick.

 _This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening…_

This is crazy. Her twin brother is not a murderer. He's not a freak who wants to gun down a bunch of people in the school hallway just because they pissed him off. Her brother can barely throw a punch. He doesn't want to really hurt people.

He isn't going to kill anyone.

He's…Hunter.

He likes comics and video games and weird music that doesn't even sound like music, just a lot of loud noise that gives her a headache. He had Thomas the Tank Engine bedsheets until he was eight. He hates the taste of bananas and has a pathological fear of large bodies of water. He used to crawl into bed with her when they were little, hiding from thunder and nightmares and their parents' arguments. He used to sense her like an extra limb; she used to understand his movements as well as she did her own.

 _He's not a killer. He can't be a killer._

After a few moments of tense silence, her brother replies, "you think he could be with one of the guys from Gamer Club?"

Winston shakes his head. "Doubtful."

"Well, it's the only lead we have right now, so maybe we should try."

"Yeah, and they were on that kill list, too. Meaning I don't think Hunter's exactly friends with them anymore."

An icy jolt lightnings down Frankie's spine. Just like that, the nausea vanishes and her vision clears.

"Can we please not call it that?" she tells Winston.

He turns around and scowls at her. "What else am I supposed to call it? He brought a _gun_ to school, Frankie. He brought a gun to school and he had a list of people who pissed him off. What do you _think_ Hunter was going to do?"

Frankie shakes her head, gritting her teeth. "Maybe he just wanted to scare them. You don't know. He didn't actually shoot anybody."

Winston shakes his head, looking at her like she's the stupidest person on earth.

"Okay," he says, "One, we don't know what Hunter would have done if Miles and I hadn't called the lockdown; two, that list was no joke, and three, how is knowing he was just carrying the gun around for show supposed to make us feel any better? When was the last time YOU brought a gun to school?"

"He's not a monster!" Frankie shouts. "You've known him all your life; he can't do this! He just…can't!"

"You act like Hunter's always been so normal," Winston scoffs. "Don't be naïve. If anyone's gonna shoot up a school, it's gonna be him. He's always been a _psycho_."

Suddenly, the car lurches to the shoulder and comes to a jolting stop. Winston and Frankie are thrown sideways by the flash of movement, and she smacks against the car door so hard her elbow digs into the door handle, shooting bolts of pain up and down her arm.

Miles whirls around and glares at both of them, his face red. Frankie and Winston stare at him, wide-eyed, waiting for an explosion. Her brother pants and gulps like he's been sprinting uphill, and his chin trembles like he's about to cry.

After a moment, Miles turns back to the front and stares out the windshield. Then he bangs his hands on the steering wheel over and over again, until Frankie can see his palms turning red.

"FUUUUUCCCCKKKK!"

Miles shouts the word to the car ceiling, dragging it out in one long, desperate scream. His hands smack the wheel again and again as he shouts, hitting the horn a few times. Somewhere, another car horn honks back in response, and Miles lays his hand on it, blasting the sound through the moonless night.

 **IV.**

When Miles finally calms down – or maybe he's just run out of breath to scream anymore – he turns back around to Winston and Frankie, who have been silently waiting out the whole thing. When he faces them, his eyes are dry, but Frankie thinks her brother looks like he's aged ten years in the hour or so Hunter's been missing.

"We can try calling the gamer kids," Miles says. "Chewy's right, he's probably not with any of them, but we have to check. Frankie, do you have their numbers? I'm not friends with any of them."

Frankie blinks, trying to pay attention to his words. They're muffled and fuzzy, no lines or edges that she can grab onto and make sense of. The sensation reminds her of being underwater; hearing conversation around her, seeing the bouncing lights and figures moving past, but unable to make anything out from the space of her floating, muted world.

"I don't," she says, reaching into her pocket. "But I have Hunter's phone. Found it in his room."

"Does it still work?" Winston asks. "Your mom said she was cancelling the service."

She shakes her head. "No. The cover's smashed, but it still works fine. I already checked."

"Good." Miles says. "Call the Game Club guys. Make sure they know it's an emergency."

"Do you really think they'd lie for him?" Winston asks.

Miles shrugs. "I have no idea."

The snow is coming down again, blowing sideways. Miles has to put the windshield wipers on the highest setting to be able to see out the front.

She turns her brother's phone over in her hands, fingertips brushing against the cracks in the screen. It lights up in her palm, and through the shattered glass she can make out his screen background, a popular character from _Realm of Doom_.

Frankie's thumb hovers over the text message bank, stopping just shy of touching it and reading her brother's old messages. In the corner of the screen, she can see the Twitter app icon. She stares at it a moment, her fingers creating greasy fingerprints on the glass that hadn't shattered.

It's not like she's the first person he'd run to if he was having problems. Talking about feelings wasn't really Hunter's forte. And Frankie didn't take her problems to her twin, either, because what would he be able to do about them? Girl talk was for Shay and Lola; her brother didn't want to hear about boy drama and school gossip any more than she wanted to hear him rant about video games and mandatory intramural sports.

But this is different.

She's reminded of when they were little, and it seemed like they could feel what the other was feeling. They were never the type of twins who bled when the other got hurt, but if one of them was either really upset or really happy, the other would pick up on it, too. They didn't change moods with each other so much as felt it when the other twin experienced a shift.

Years later, when she was in grade eight science, she learned that there was such a thing called phantom pain. It was a pain experienced by people who had lost limbs; they swore they could feel actual pain in the sight where the limb was removed, except there was nothing there. They couldn't possibly feel anything, and yet they completely believed they could.

Learning that had creeped her out to no end. How could you feel something that couldn't be real? How could you prove that you were hurting in a place that didn't exist? How could you tell if the people who claimed to feel it were just making it all up, or if they were telling the truth? And if they were telling the truth, did that just make them crazy?

The day she was trapped in the fire, Hunter swore he knew she was in trouble before the fire alarms ever went off. He could feel it, before he smelled smoke or saw a single flame.

From across the restaurant booth they'd crammed into, Miles smirked.

"Your spidey senses were tingling, Hunter?"

Hunter scowled.

"Fuck off," he replied, but Frankie could tell he didn't really mean it. There was no venom in his voice.

Miles dunked a handful of French fries in ketchup. "So it was, what, a psychic connection? Like you have ESPN or something?"

Frankie arched her eyebrows. "Really, Brother? I almost die in a fire and you're still quoting _Mean Girls_?"

Miles shrugged, snagging a fry off her plate. "Not my fault _Mean Girls_ is always relevant."

She made a face, swatting his hand away.

"Believe what you want," Hunter said, still scowling at Miles. "Doesn't change anything. I still knew something was up."

He turned to Frankie. "I could feel it. You know it's not crazy. You get those feelings, too."

She did, in the way that you look over an edge and feel your heart drop, picturing for the briefest moment the insanity of falling to the bottom. She'd had those feelings her entire life, but never wondered if Hunter did as well. They had never talked about them before.

But instead of agreeing with Hunter, she shrugged one shoulder. "It might be the stress of almost dying getting to me, but I don't think I can handle any more strangeness today. Twin variety or non."

Hunter frowned, disappointed.

Miles grinned at her. "At least if you get trapped down a well, Lassie can let us know."

"Do you ever shut up?" Hunter snapped, and that time they could all feel the temperature in the room drop a couple degrees at his tone.

They sat in silence a while, mulling over their food, while Frankie remembered being seven and knowing exactly when Hunter had fallen off his bike and hit his head on the sidewalk the moment before Miles came running around the corner, yelling for their mom. She'd been sitting in her room when all of a sudden there was a swoop in the pit of her stomach, like she'd missed a step down the stairs. She gasped, whether from pain or fear she couldn't tell. A half-second later, she heard Miles shouting that Hunter fell off his bike and his head was bleeding.

"Did you know he was behind the trolling?" she asks.

It's a beat before Miles replies. "Yeah. I found out the day of the Snow Ball."

Frankie leans her forehead against the freezing glass of the car window. She tries, but can't remember the last time she had a moment like the one Hunter was talking about in the restaurant on the day of the fire. The gut feeling that something wasn't right, that couldn't just be boiled down to coincidence or luck. It wasn't chance; it was certainty. It hummed through her bones, a kind of energy she couldn't explain and would sound crazy trying to.

 _She should have known._

How did everything get so crazy?

She doesn't realize she's said that out loud, but she must have, because Miles catches her eye in the rearview.

"I don't know, Frankenstein," he says tiredly.

 **V.**

All of Hunter's friends from Gamer Club say the same thing – they had a falling out with Hunter after Simpson shut them down, no one has seen or talked to him since the day of the Snow Ball, and they have no idea where he might be. But if he turns up, they'll call her or Miles right away.

That Yael girl is the last person Frankie calls, and before they hang up Yael asks her quietly if Hunter is okay.

There's a pause on the other end of the line.

"He was my best friend," she says, her voice soft, and Frankie thinks she might be crying. "I miss talking to him. I know things got pretty bad between us, but –"

"Wait," Frankie cuts her off. "What do you mean? Bad, like how?"

She hears Yael take a breath. "He didn't tell you we had a fight?"

"The fight with the Game Club," Frankie says. "Yeah, I know about that. He was mad that Simpson cancelled it."

"That's all he said?"

Frankie's throat closes up. Her brother already brought a gun to school. What else could there possibly be that she doesn't know?

Her heart flip-flops as Yael keeps talking, her voice soft and sad.

"Hello? Frankie? Are you still there?"

"I'm here," she says hoarsely, and closes her eyes. If she keeps them shut, maybe the world will stop spinning and everything will go back to normal.

Another pause from the other end of the line, then Yael says, "If I see your brother, I'll let you know. But I don't think I want him around me anymore."

Frankie nods before remembering the other girl can't see her.

"Okay," she replies.

They hang up, and Frankie keeps staring at the blinking screen even after Yael's let her go.

Winston hears her sigh as she hangs up the call, and turns around to face her. "No luck with the Nerd Herd?"

Frankie shakes her head. "Guess we start on a Plan B."

Winston nods. "Where to now?"

She arches her eyebrows. "You're asking me?"

From the driver's seat, Miles says, "You know him the best out of all of us. Where do you think he would go?"

"I don't know," she says, and all of a sudden there are tears in her eyes. She wipes them away with the back of her gloved hand, scolding herself to keep it together. Crying isn't going to solve anything.

Winston shrugs. "Come on, Franks. You have to have some kind of idea. Something we haven't thought of. Being his twin has to mean something. You know, more than just a regular brother/sister bond. Don't you have, like twintuition or something?"

"I don't think we can rely on Frankie's spidey senses tingling, Chewy," Miles says, his voice half-amused, half exasperated.

Frankie blinks at his words; she flashes back to the day of the fire, crammed into that sweaty booth at the diner. Miles said the same thing that day, and Frankie didn't back Hunter up when he said he could feel she was in trouble before the smoke came.

And he found her.

"I don't have a psychic hotline into my brother's head," is her answer.

"Well obviously," Winston replies. "Or else you'd know he was crazy."

"Winston," Miles says, his voice colder than Frankie has ever heard it. "Shut up."

He turns to her. "Frankie, think. Do you have any idea where he might go? Anywhere we might have missed?"

She shakes her head.

Miles blows out a breath, hitting his hand against the back of the leather seat.

"Okay," he says after a beat. "We'll circle back to the places we already went. I don't think he could get much further than here on foot."

"Especially in the snow," Winston says. "Without any gear, he'd have to duck into someplace warm."

Miles nods. "Alright, then. New plan."

Frankie watches the snow outside her window. She can't stop thinking about the day of the fire, what Hunter said to her in that booth.

 _You know it's not crazy. You get those feelings, too._

Why had she lied and said she didn't? Why didn't she back her brother up?

It's what he would have done for her. It's what he's always done for her. She knows that as automatically as she knows how to breathe.

It's the same way her family knows that when Hunter is freaking out about something, Frankie is the only one who can get through to him. Their family's never discussed it or officially designated her as the person to handle Hunter's meltdowns because nobody ever had to.

It's the truth they've never shared in the Hollingsworth house, because everyone already knows: Hunter will always listen to Frankie.

Frankie wonders who she'll find when they find her brother. The Hunter who used to curl under the covers with a comic book and flashlight, whispering to her while their parents fought downstairs? The Hunter who fell asleep close enough for her to feel him breathing next to her as they shared the space of her mattress, spine to spine, a human zipper? The Hunter who told her that he had a sense that something was wrong the day of the fire and his twin needed help? The one who fell asleep on top of her bed that night still in his clothes, smelling like smoke and BO and French fry grease, and she gulped his smell in deep breaths with her eyes closed until it calmed her into sleep?

Would she find that brother? Or someone else? The person who wanted to kill people?

She opens her mouth to say something, then abruptly shuts it again. She stares down at the silent phone in her lap – no texts or calls, nothing on social media, not a peep from his own cell wedged in her pocket. Her twin might as well have walked off the face of the earth.

A few miles before the turnoff that would take them to the mall, Frankie says, "I can't believe you didn't tell me about the gun."

"You didn't tell me about the comics," he shoots back.

Frankie glares at the back of his seat. "That's different. Those were just drawings. A gun is a gun. As in shoot and kill people."

Silence from her brother. Winston, too, stays uncharacteristically quiet. No jokes or sarcastic remarks or suggestions about where her twin might be; he just sits in the passenger seat next to Miles, watching the snow fall

"How could you not tell Mom and Dad about the gun?"

Winston turns around to look at her. "Frankie –"

She ignores him and speaks directly to Miles. "You should have told them that night. Or you should have gone to the police. You should have done _something."_

After a moment, she adds, "Or were you too busy getting high?"

Miles jerks his head around. "At least I wasn't moping around like some spoiled drama queen."

"No, you were too busy getting wasted! Doing so many drugs you had no idea what you were on! Being stupid and getting high all the time and never coming home!" Her shrieks rattle the inside of the Mercedes. "That is SO much better!"

"So I'm a shitty brother!" Miles yells back. "Okay, fine. So what's your excuse? You're his fucking _twin._ But you're too wrapped up in your own little Frankie world to notice Hunter was in trouble!"

"Shut up!" she screams. Tears are pouring down her face hard she can't see straight. When did that happen? She doesn't remember starting to cry.

Winston looks between the two of them, silent and helpless.

From the front seat, she can hear Miles take a couple of deep breaths.

"Look, I know I fucked up, okay?" he says, his voice just skirting the edge of calm. "I've been a pretty terrible big brother. I just wanted to help him. Everything I did, it was for him. So I kept my mouth shut."

After a moment, he adds, "Hell, I stayed because of him."

Winston frowns. "What do you mean, you 'stayed' for him?"

Miles tilts the rearview down and looks at Frankie. She's still crying, and since she doesn't have any tissues to blow her nose with, she has to wipe her face and nose on the inside of her jacket. It leaves a disgusting trail of clear slime on the fleece, but at least she can breathe through her nose again.

"I was gonna go away to boarding school this semester," Miles says finally. "Mom and I had it all planned out. I needed a fresh start, and she thought it was a good idea to get away from Degrassi. All the…bad influences, and everything. To help me stay sober. Then I found out what Hunter did, and after that…I couldn't leave. Not now. He needed someone to keep an eye on him, and make sure he didn't…you know. Try anything."

Winston shakes his head. "You mean, pull a Columbine on Degrassi?"

"I didn't know if he'd need me again," Miles says, his voice sharp, and Winston shrinks back from the tone. For a second, the angry edge to his tone reminds her so much of her twin, it's almost like Hunter said the words himself.

When did her brothers' voices start to sound so similar?

"I told him that I'd be here. That he'd always have me. What was I supposed to do, turn around and go, 'alrighty, I'm going away to boarding school, see you in six months'? I couldn't do that."

It's quiet in the car as they continue to drive through the snow. The storm has picked up its pace; snow is falling so fast and thick outside her window she can barely see the lane next to her.

They sit in complete silence for so long that when Miles whispers it sounds like a shout, making her and Winston both jump.

"I promised him," is all her brother says, and then he's quiet as he maneuvers their little car through the dazzling fury of white.

 **VI.**

Who knows how much later, the realization strikes Frankie:

Miles didn't stay at Degrassi to protect Hunter.

He did it to protect people _from_ Hunter.

It hits her right in the chest, sudden as a gunshot.

She just barely gets the message across; Miles pulls over on the shoulder of the road, and she has just enough time to fling the car door open and stumble into the freezing wind before gagging into the fresh white snow.

There's nothing in her stomach; all that comes up is the acidic dread that's settled deep inside her, burning her all the way through.

 **VII.**

Even though Frankie insists she won't be sick again, Miles still insists on stopping at the next gas station. The car needs gas, and he has to scrape off the windshield so he can actually see the road ahead.

They pull into a station and all climb out, stretching their limbs like they've been crammed in the car for days instead of just an hour or so. But they've been sitting on the edge of their seats the entire time, tense as a coiled spring, and Frankie's whole body feels limp with exhaustion.

The cold slices her like a blade, even with her layers. She thinks about Hunter, running out the back door in only a sweater and jeans. No coat, no boots, not even gloves, in the middle of this black and white world of icy darkness.

Winston heads inside to grab a soda, and Miles starts filling up the tank. Frankie follows Winston into the convenience store, and on impulse asks the cashier if he's seen Hunter. She shows him a picture on her phone; he says no, and she can't help but be disappointed even though she didn't expect anything else.

Defeated, she slumps off to use the washroom. The door clicks behind her, and she stands in a dingy, dimly-lit single bathroom. The sink is filled with wet paper towels clinging to the edge of the porcelain, and the mirror above it is speckled with bits of rust and grime and God knows what else she'd rather not think about. She peers down at the toilet paper dispenser; nothing there, and no extra rolls in sight. Good thing she doesn't actually have to use it.

Instead she stares at herself in the mirror, her reflection smeared by the rusty stains patterned on the glass. Her hair is wild from the wind, cheeks red, lips chapped and peeling. There's snow in her hair and on her shoulders; she brushes it off, and some of it melts into her hasty ponytail, loose bits of hair flying in front of her face. It looks like she followed her brother out into the snow, running into the stormy night.

At least she has a coat.

 _Believe what you want. Doesn't change anything. I still knew something was up. Because I could feel it._

 _You know it's not crazy. You get those feelings, too._

Frankie blinks, feeling sick again, and makes herself suck in a deep breath. It smells of bleach and generic hand soap and pee. It doesn't exactly help her stomach or her pounding head, but she can't be sick in this disgusting washroom, while her brother is somewhere she can't find.

She stares at her reflection, like maybe it will tell her something important. It doesn't, of course, so instead Frankie looks at herself and tries to find pieces of her brother in her own face. Maybe if she can find parts of Hunter she knows as well as she knows herself, it will spark whatever mysterious twin-dar they used to have. It's crazy and stupid and probably all made up in her scared, stressed-out head, but it's better than feeling helpless.

Frankie stares at herself until her eyes tear from not blinking. Mirror-Frankie does the same. She thinks about how Miles looked older to her somehow, like worry and fear had aged him. If anything, Frankie thinks she looks younger. Like a scared little girl who wants her mother, needing someone to take her hand and kiss her skinned knee and make it all better.

Except when she was little, it was never her mother that she ran to when she was scared. The first person Frankie went to whenever she needed someone – after a bad dream, a bad day of school, a particularly bad fight between her parents when they either thought the kids were asleep or didn't care that they could hear the yelling – was always Hunter.

They never needed to need to ask. Someone would just slip through the cracks of the bedroom door in the middle of the night, silent as a shadow, and the other would move aside to make room on the mattress. When they were little, they'd huddle under the covers and share a flashlight, reading comic books until their eyes were too tired to stay open. If that didn't work, Frankie would get Hunter to talk. It didn't matter about what; as long as he kept talking, he'd eventually tire himself out enough to sleep. And when he was asleep, it was easier for her to follow suit. Hunter was always a light sleeper, and it had always been harder for him to drift off. He used to tell their parents it felt like he had bugs crawling in his brain; thoughts and ideas were skittering across his mind so fast, he couldn't turn them off.

Their parents laughed. They told Hunter to stop watching so much TV before bed.

It had been years since the last time they'd crawled into each other's beds – they'd stopped when they were eight or nine, Frankie thinks – but even now there were times Hunter would fall asleep in her room. Some nights, they'd be up late doing homework, and he'd fall asleep with his laptop open and homework spread out around him, curled on the rug at the foot of her bed. After she moved his school things out of the way, she'd cover him with a blanket and let him stay there until morning, when her alarm woke the both of them.

It was never something he asked, or anything she thought about. It was just the way things were.

Back in grade eight, Hunter asked to move his bedroom from the one across the hall from Miles to the room right off the garage, on the first floor of the house. It was almost twice the size of the room he had, and it had more hook-ups for all of his electronics. He reasoned that if he was farther away from the rest of the family, he could make as much noise as he wanted, and nobody would be kept awake by his midnight gaming.

"The garage is the coldest room in the house," Dad argued. "You're going to be freezing ninety percent of the time."

"So I'll get blankets," Hunter replied, jutting his chin out. Frankie knew that stubborn look; he wasn't going to budge. "And a couple extra space heaters."

"It's so _dark_ in there," Mom said, like that wasn't one of the main reasons Hunter wanted that room all to himself.

He scowled at her. "Then I'll get some extra lamps, too! Why does it matter to you how dark it is if I'm the only one using it?"

"Watch that tone," Mom replied, eyes narrowed.

Frankie watched Hunter bite the inside of his cheek, trying not to shout. Instead, he clenched his hands into fists at his side, knuckles white.

"We aren't even using that room," he said through gritted teeth. "Miles is always keeping me awake. I can never sleep because he makes so much noise. Plus, he and Frankie hog the bathroom every single morning and I never get any privacy!"

"Hey," Frankie argued. "Miles is a way bigger bathroom hog than me."

Hunter ignored her.

"The room off the garage has its own bathroom, so I'd never have to wait," he said. "I'm not gonna be running behind in the morning because Miles wastes so much time on his stupid hair, or Frankie takes an hour-long shower and I don't have any time! Nobody would be fighting over it anymore if I just had my own! Or at least, let those two idiots fight it out, because I wouldn't care anymore."

"Can you just give him the room?" Frankie scowled at her twin. "Then I won't have to deal with his mess anymore."

"Least I don't take up the entire counter with all my make-up crap," he snapped.

"No, you don't, Mr. I-Always-Leave-My-Dirty-Clothes-And-Soaking-Wet-Towels-On-The-Floor. You know how many times I trip over all your stuff because you're too lazy to pick it up? You leave your dirty socks and underwear all over! It's disgusting!"

He'd gotten the room in the end – Frankie suspected Hunter's stubbornness wore down Mom and Dad – and Hunter's old room was turned into a guest room, refurnished by an interior decorator their mother hired. But even with new furniture, Frankie could still make out the indents in the carpet that her brother's bed had made, as if Hunter's older bedroom and younger self were still clinging to the room somehow.

Up until today, it had been months since she'd been in his new room – and she still referred to it as the "new room", even though Hunter had moved downstairs almost three years ago. The last time she had been inside was the afternoon she and Winston found the zombie cheerleader comics. Before that, Frankie can't remember the last time she'd gone in. Hunter forbade everyone from going into his room, but even without the giant HAZARD sign taped to the door, Frankie won't go in without a good reason.

It always creeps her out.

It's not just because the place smells like gross socks, or because there are empty potato chip bags everywhere because both her brothers are complete slobs. She always feels it, the moment she steps inside – the springing tension, the thin edge of something sharp and angry, just barely contained.

Being in her twin's room is like being sucked into a black funnel cloud. There's a current thrumming through that place that always makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, like the stillness that comes right before a major thunderstorm.

She can be in that room and feel like she has no idea who sleeps here. Like there's some dark stranger lurking in the corners of her home. A name caught on the tip of her tongue, a flicker of movement just outside her range of vision. Something that she occasionally catches glimpses of, and even though she knows it's there, seeing it in front of her makes her feel like she's seeing the inside of a whole new world. One that's stripped and twisted and ugly, like walking into a nightmare.

 **VIII.**

"Maybe we should go back," Winston says, but his tone is doubtful. He's watching Miles, the way her brother's jaw is grinding back and forth as he focuses on the road ahead. "I mean, knowing your dad, he's got the entire police force of Ontario looking for Hunter. And it's not like we have any real leads."

Miles shakes his head.

"I'm not just giving up on him, Chewy," he says. "He's my brother, and I already failed him enough. I can't go home now."

Winston looks at Frankie for help, but she just stares back. They can't turn back. Not now. Not until they find her twin and bring him home without the police. They have to be the ones to find him, because they let him be lost.

He shakes his and sighs, turning away from her.

She hates to admit it, but Winston does kind of have a point. Their dad probably has every cop in Canada looking for her twin. Whatever she thinks of her dad, one thing he's always been able to do was get his way. She's never heard him admit defeat or failure or ever say he's wrong. She's always known that, just like she's always known her family never lacked anything. When a Hollingsworth wanted something, they got it, no matter what it was.

Or what it would cost.

She remembers becoming aware her family had more money than most people. She must have been about seven or eight.

"Are we rich?"

She'd asked her dad from the backseat of his car. It was just the two of them, a rare occurrence for any of the Hollingsworth kids. Frankie can't remember why she brought it up; if it was apropos of something her father had said, or if she was repeating something she heard at school, or if she'd just been thinking about it on her own and came to that conclusion herself.

Her dad turned around to face her.

"That's a question you never want to ask people, Frankie," he'd told her. "It's considered rude, and a lot of people will be offended if you do. You shouldn't go around saying you're rich, or asking people how much money they have."

"So we are?"

He sighed. "Yes, we are."

"How rich? How much money do we have?"

"Did you hear what I just told you?" Her dad had The Tone, and she'd heard it enough times to know that asking more questions would end with her getting punished, like Miles always was when he backtalked. "Don't ask people about money. It's disrespectful. Yes, we have a lot of money and people call us rich. But you can't say that to other people, okay? They'll think you have no manners."

She knew better than to reply, but that conversation stayed in her head long after her dad shut it down. It was the first time she'd really been aware that she and her brothers were different from the other kids at school, and not every family lived like theirs.

Other families didn't have private jets and four cars. Other families didn't have housekeepers and swimming pools and groundskeepers and interior decorators. Other families didn't own a villa in France, spend summers running around Paris, London, Venice, Barcelona. Other families didn't teach their children to swim on a private beach in Thailand, in the shadow of an exclusive resort.

Frankie remembers that part so well, she wonders if it's an actual memory, or if she's just heard her family tell the stories so many times that her imagination is coloring in the blanks for her. She doesn't think so, because she knows for a fact that Hunter hated swimming and fought their parents every time they tried to get him to go into the ocean, so eventually they just gave up and let him play on the beach with his bucket of army men, setting up battle fields in the dunes.

Dad was disappointed in him, Frankie remembered. Hunter had always had a weird fear of water, and would have a meltdown every time someone suggested he go for a swim. All three kids had been signed up for swimming lessons at their dad's country club when they were young, and while it was a struggle to get Miles and Frankie out of the water once they were in, Hunter would kick and flail and (once) bite anyone who tried to force him into the shallow end. Even now, he avoided the pool and begged Mom and Dad to let him stay with Grandma instead of going on a family vacation to the beach. They never let him stay behind, so he always spent their vacations in the hotel room using the resort's Wi-Fi, while Frankie and Miles raced each other in the tides.

Dad always praised Frankie for being a natural swimmer – "just like a mermaid", he'd say, smiling when she beat the other kids in races at the country club pool. Then he'd tell Miles that if he would quit being so lazy and try to accomplish something for once in his life, he might actually beat his little sister someday. She remembers when Dad told her that Frankie was the only one of his kids who inherited his natural athleticism.

"Unlike some people," he'd say, looking at her older brother with that sideways glance that he never threw Frankie or Hunter, but still made her feel two inches tall. "Your sister could teach you a thing or two, Miles."

She couldn't imagine how much smaller Miles must feel whenever that look was aimed his way. Then again, that was how their dad usually looked at Miles, so maybe he was just used to it.

Up until the day of the fire, her dad had always kept the demarcation lines in their family clear. Miles on one side, the twins on the other. Miles was disrespectful, disobedient, a troublemaker, lazy, unreliable, a failure. The twins were quiet, polite, hardworking and successful. Miles yelled back, and the twins kept their mouths shut. Miles went out of his way to make trouble, and the twins kept their heads down. Miles got angry, and the twins got out of the way.

They never talked about it. Just like they never talked about Dad's affairs, or Mom's cocktails before two in the afternoon, or Miles disappearing for days at a time.

The day of the fire was the first time all three of them had ever really been on the same page. The first time that Miles, Frankie and Hunter all acknowledged yeah, their family was pretty fucked-up, but a lot of it wasn't their fault. And anyway, they had each other.

After all these months of her parents hovering in their weird maybe-divorce limbo, Frankie wonders if her dad wonders why things turned out this way. Why she and Frankie sided with Miles for once, instead of listening to him. Why she listened to Hunter when he told her Dad hit Miles. Why they broke the unspoken rules of their family and finally spoke up.

Why she stepped back in between her brothers, and the three of them walked away, leaving their father standing on the sidewalk, alone.

Dad hadn't understood that, the day of the fire. Frankie thinks he doesn't understand it now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, retweeted, reblogged, or just loved this story.**

 **Special thanks to auroraborealison on Tumblr, who is my go-to person for all things Canadian.**

 **I.**

Their mom has told this story so much, Frankie swears she can remember it, even though it's impossible that she would:

A few weeks before the twins were born, she went in for an ultrasound and saw them holding hands in the womb.

Sometimes she dreams about it, the quiet underwater world. Sightless eyes sensing each other in the soft darkness, still-forming limbs reaching towards the other, their whole world made up of the sound of each other's heartbeats.

She's never asked Hunter if she has the same dream. He probably would have rolled his eyes. Said something like, "sure, Frankenstein. Whatever you say."

" _I still knew something was up. How did I know something was wrong? Because I could feel it."_

When they were kids and went to their first funeral for some great-uncle they'd never met, Frankie asked her mom if all old people died. Her mother said yes, and Frankie wondered if Miles would die before her because he was older, and if Mom and Dad would die before him, because they were the oldest. She cried over the idea of losing them, but she remembers not feeling the same fear about Hunter.

She's thought of her life without Miles. It's not like she wants to, but in terms of risky life decisions that may or may not end in someone getting killed, Miles tends to run towards those with open arms. She's always worried about him and won't let herself think about what could happen, but has never felt that way about Hunter.

A silly, childish thought, but one Frankie can't admit to herself that still she believes:

They came into the world together; it made sense that's how they would leave it. That they'd never be apart.

 **II.**

The phone rings.

It startles Frankie, who has been staring out the window watching snowflakes hit the glass like spilled sugar. Underneath her feet, the car hums like a pulse, carrying them along the veins of black streets.

Miles' phone sits in the cupholder between the driver and passenger seat, buzzes furiously against the plastic.

"Pick it up, Chewy," Miles urges. "It might be Hunter."

"Dude, he doesn't have his phone on him, remember?"

"Well, then, maybe he's calling from someone else's phone!" He takes his eyes off the road just long enough to frown at Winston. "Just answer it, okay?"

Winston turns back to Frankie and catches her eye. For a moment, they just stare at each other, like he's confirming something. He must find what he's looking for somewhere in her face, because he turns away from her and picks up her brother's phone.

"Is it Hunter?" Miles' voice hits a note Frankie's pretty sure it hasn't been able to reach since before puberty. "Chewy, is it him?"

"It's just your mom," he says, and Frankie slumps in disappointment even though she didn't expect it to be her twin on the other end of the line.

"Answer it anyway," Miles replies. "Maybe the cops found him."

Winston catches her eye one more time in the rearview mirror, then looks away.

"Hello?"

Frankie sees Miles lean over the gearshift as far as he dares to while keeping his eyes on the road, trying to hear what their mom is saying.

"Is he okay?"

Frankie grips the back of Winston's seat, her head swimming.

"What's wrong?" Miles' voice hits a note Frankie is pretty sure her brother hasn't been able to reach since before puberty.

Instead of answering, Winston holds a hand up to silence him, keeping the cell phone clamped to his shoulder.

"Yeah, we can be there in twenty minutes."

He hangs up, and Miles explodes.

"Chewy, what the fuck? What did she say?"

"Did something happen?" Frankie isn't shouting like her brother; she barely has any voice left to whisper.

"They found Hunter," Winston says.

"Yeah, thanks, we got that much. What happened? Is he okay?"

"He's at the hospital," Winston replies, and maybe it's the car that slips underneath Frankie or maybe it's the entire world just spun helter skelter, knocking the ground from under her. "They picked him up at a convenience store a few miles from school. Your mom said he's fine, just cold. The cops brought him to White Pines ER to make sure he was okay. Your parents are there with him now. They're still waiting to see the doctor."

Frankie tries to take a deep breath. It burns her chest and makes her bones ache, but when she sucks in air she holds it and lets it out slowly, trying not to cry.

"You know where this place is?" Winston asks.

Miles nods. "It's close to where I go for counseling."

She almost sniffles, but tells herself to get it together. Instead, she turns to Winston.

"Did Mom say if Hunter talked to her?"

It comes out croaky, nothing like her voice.

"She didn't say." Winston frowns. "Why, what do you think he might have said?"

Frankie leans back into the seat and tilts her head up towards the ceiling.

"I don't know," she murmurs, closing her eyes. "I was just hoping."

Hoping for what, exactly? Answers? Reasons? Something that could make her understand?

She doesn't know why she's so disappointed all of a sudden. She's never going to understand what would make someone take a gun to school and hurt people.

Winston used to call Hunter "the Omen", like that old horror movie about the boy demon she'd once watched with her brothers. He'd say stuff like, "the Omen is in his room" or "the Omen said he wants pepperoni on his pizza" or "the Omen called me a troll and slammed the door in my face." He toned it down a little bit once he and Frankie started dating, mostly because she wanted things to be less awkward whenever Winston came over to her house, but he was only doing it because Frankie asked him to. They'd known Winston's family his whole life and he'd been Miles' best friend for years, but he and Hunter had never gotten along. Winston thought Hunter was weird and creepy, Hunter thought Winston was annoying and obsessed with being popular, and the terms "psycho" and "pathetic" were the most commonly-used words shared between them; at least, the most PG-rated ones.

They didn't seem to hate each other now as much as they did when they were kids, but that was mostly because ever since they started going to the same high school, Winston and her brother seemed to have made an unspoken agreement that they would just pretend like the other didn't exist. Which made things a little weird when she and Winston started dating, but they got over it quickly. Frankie had never known her brother and boyfriend to ever get along, and since Hunter spent pretty much all of his time locked in his room or in the Degrassi media center playing video games, it was easy for her to go with Winston's plan of acting like he didn't exist.

Except for moments when she couldn't. Like with the cheerleader comics.

Sometimes, she couldn't ignore the feeling she sometimes got when she looked at Hunter –like she had no idea who was staring back at her, like it wasn't even him in there. Then, she saw The Other Person who sometimes lived in her twin brother's skin; the sneering expression, the hard voice stripped of anything but anger, the wild darkness in his eyes, the way the air around him feels tinged with vicious electricity.

It was one more thing she never talked about with her brother. She didn't think she could. It was something she didn't understand herself, and whenever she tried, something pushed back at her, a door in her head slamming before she could get close enough to look inside. The slam that always told her she was being stupid, and Hunter was just being his usual weird self. He said and did a lot of creepy things that she didn't understand, but that didn't mean anything. It made him different; it didn't make him a psychopath.

"And she's sure he's completely okay?" Miles' voice is still shaky.

Winston shrugs. "I mean, as okay as I think Hunter can ever be."

Her brother either ignores that comment or doesn't hear it. Then he makes the first left they come across, turning so sharply that Frankie feels the car tilt on impact. The yellow light winks out to red right before he hits the gas and pushes the car forward, and Winston swears loudly as a white van nearly broadsides them. The driver lays on his horn as they go past. Winston swears again, muttering under his breath.

"Think you can manage not to kill before we get there?" he asks Miles.

Frankie steadies herself against the back of Winston's chair, her forehead pressed to the leather. She feels like she's shaking all over, but not from the near-accident or Miles' terrible driving.

 _He's alive, he's alive, he's alive._

 **III.**

They drive through a side of the city where the streets splay out like jagged teeth and the buildings look hunched over, dirtied by the coal-black sky and wet, heavy clouds. Frankie has been to this hospital before, when she was twelve and sprained her ankle during cheerleading practice, but doesn't remember the surrounding area looking this run-down when she was last here. Then again, part of being a kid is never noticing the things that are sometimes right in front of you.

The hospital parking lot is full and the only thing available is street parking, but after circling the block twice they have to admit defeat. Miles swears loudly and slams his fists on the wheel, which does nothing to help them find a place to park the damn car and only makes Frankie want to yell at her stupid brother for being stupid and yelling stupidly about stupid things.

Then she wants to yell at Winston for running his big mouth, because if Tristan hadn't heard about Hunter being Maya's troll or that list he made the night of the Snow Ball, then Tristan wouldn't have gone to Principle Simpson with Miles' text messages from that night, and Hunter would never be facing expulsion.

Then she wants to yell at her parents for ganging up on Hunter like they did, accusing him of something they couldn't prove and believing things about him that couldn't be true and treating him like some criminal instead of their son.

And she really, really, really wants to yell at Hunter. Wants to take him by the shoulders, shaking him so hard his teeth rattle, and demand an answer. Like if she shook him hard enough, it would force the truth out of him.

 _Why are you acting crazy?_

 _How could you do something this horrible and wrong?_

 _Did you really want to kill people?_

 _Are you a psycho?_

She wants to yell at herself, too.

Miles swears again, startling her, and instead of getting angry this time she shrinks back into her seat, staring out the window. There's an abandoned gas station on the corner with a single street lamp shining over it, and from here she can see snowflakes blustering in the sickly yellow glow, the wind scattering them in every direction. The snow is coming down hard again, thick and grey and heavy, chunks of the night smacking onto Miles' windshield as they look for a place to park. A million little pieces come down around them, like the sky is crumbling apart.

They finally find an empty space in a Target parking lot, which is packed with shoppers. Frankie stares at all of the cars, bewildered as to why it's so crowded, before she suddenly remembers: Christmas is three days away.

Of course the store is busy; no wonder they couldn't find any street parking. Everybody is out finishing their holiday shopping.

How did she forget that? She'd just been to the mall the day before yesterday with Shay and Lola so they could finish their own shopping. Or rather, Frankie and Lola were doing the shopping, and Shay was there to help – she had her parents' presents wrapped up in the back of her closet since before school let out.

She'd walked through a department store looking for something to get her mom, and wondered whether or not she should get her dad a present this year. She'd broken up a minor squabble between her friends over going to Victoria's Secret, and in the end Frankie waited outside the store with Shay, who sulked by the giant fountain in the center of the mall while Lola went in alone. She'd spent too much money at the MAC store, and agonized privately to herself about whether she ought to get something for Jonah. Something small and inexpensive, but it would be important to him, somehow.

Frankie remembers it, but somehow, none of it feels real. It's like she's remembering the plot of a movie, or looking at pictures from someone else's vacation.

They climb out of the car, Winston cursing as his feet slide into a wet pile of dirty slush, and head for the direction of the hospital's glowing EMERGENCY sign. Not even two days ago, her biggest problems were mall traffic, bestie drama, and gift-giving. And now here she is.

Snow pelts Frankie in the face, and she has to duck her head into the collar of her jacket to keep it from blinding her. She can hardly see, so instead of looking ahead she focuses on watching Miles' feet move in front of her, and tries to keep them in time with her own. His legs are longer, and by the time the light changes and they can cross the street he's practically running, so she has to hurry to keep up with him.

It takes her eyes a minute to adjust to the hospital's harsh fluorescents, and the heat is cranked so high she has to peel her coat off to keep from sweating. The smell of antiseptic rivals with the smell of wilting flowers, making the air heavy and sick-sweet as she buries her nose in her coat and breathes in the smell of the fleece, sweat and snow and snot. Not much better, but at least it's not as cloying.

Her parents are sitting in two of the hard-backed grey chairs that are circled around the edges of the crowded, windowless waiting area. Or rather, Dad is sitting, and Mom is leaned against the wall, her eyes darting around the room. When she spots Frankie and the boys, her whole body slumps in relief.

Miles reaches out to give their mother a hug, and she holds him tightly, running her hands up and down his back. He's so much taller than she is that she has to stand on her toes to even reach his shoulders.

"It's okay," she murmurs, and Frankie wants to shove her brother aside and take his place in Mom's arms. She can't remember the last time she hugged her mother, or her mother hugged her. "He's fine. Absolutely fine."

She lets go of Miles, and Frankie wants to be the one her mom can hold and soothe and comfort, but Mom's eyes pass over her and the fraction of a second Frankie had to move is gone, so she folds her arms together and rocks on her heels instead.

"What happened?" Miles asks.

"The doctors found him at a gas station close to the school," Mom replies. "They were worried about exposure, but it's nothing serious. We can take him home as soon as they discharge him."

"Wait," Miles says. "Take him home? Are they serious?"

"Of course they're serious, Miles," her father says, standing up from his seat. "You heard your mother. Hunter's fine."

Miles stares at him in disbelief. "You actually believe that?"

Before their dad can reply, Miles turns back to their mother.

"He can't just go back home, Mom. He needs help."

"We can help him at home," Mom replies.

Miles shakes his head. "No, I mean real help. Like counseling, or…." He frowns, chewing on his lower lip. "I don't know _something_."

"Miles," their mom says, using the same voice she uses when she tells Frankie and the boys that their dad is coming over tonight, so we're all going to be here and have a nice family dinner, and everything is going to be fine, just fine, "I know this was scary, but your brother is going to be okay. The nurse said –"

Miles cuts her off. "Can't they put him on the psyche ward, or something?"

Mom's face goes white. Frankie feels her heart drop straight into her stomach, and Dad looks like someone just struck him. Even Winston is silent, staring at Miles with wide, unblinking eyes.

"Your brother is not going to the nuthouse," Dad snaps.

Miles glares at him. "Was I talking to you?"

"Okay," Winston says, his voice low. He plants himself firmly in front of Miles, holding one hand out to keep him back. "At least Hunter's okay; that's good news."

Miles shakes his head. "He's not okay. He's not even close."

He turns to their mom, eyes pleading.

"Hunter is _sick_ , Mom," he says, his words heavy, and Frankie's throat closes when Miles starts to cry. "He's sick, and he needs us to help him. We have to. Or something really, really bad will happen, and then it'll be too late."

Her mother is crying now, too. Frankie watches silently as tears pour down her own face. She wipes them absently with the back of her hand.

Their dad takes a deep breath, which makes them all turn to look at him. And Frankie thinks for the first time in her life that her dad actually looks old. His face is lined like creased paper, his hair threaded with grey. But it's the way he's holding himself, hands limp at his sides and his eyes tired, that make him look suddenly older, too normal; like a real person instead of just her dad, larger-than-life and always with all the answers. Someone who is getting older every day, and someday he'll be an old man capable of dying like everybody else in the world.

"We'll figure out what to do," he says, looking at Miles. "We all know this is serious, Miles, believe me; we have no intention of sweeping it under the rug."

Frankie glances at Miles, expecting war, but for once in his life it looks like he has nothing to say. He avoids making eye contact with their father by focusing on the speckled tile floor, but he doesn't try to argue or put up a fight.

Mom rubs her hands up and down her arms. As Frankie watches, Dad goes over to her and puts his arm around, drawing her close, and she puts his head on her shoulder, closing her eyes. Frankie has seen her parents kiss and hug and hold hands in public before, but the automatic closeness of the gesture makes her feel like she's watching something too private for her to see. This isn't something they made up for the cameras; it's something they don't have to think about, because they've been together so long it's become second nature.

Like the way she and Hunter are so familiar with each other's gestures, they can feel them rippling through their own selves. She can hear her brother rolling his eyes without seeing his face; Hunter can feel her shrugging even with his back turned. It's like an extension of herself, except it's not a part of her body.

It's the same way they can tell where the other one was without needing to actually look. She doesn't have to open her eyes to see. It's just…there. Automatic.

The image of Hunter's face, laughing with her on the car ride to school, flashes behind her eyes. Then, the look in his eyes when took her by the shoulders and said it was okay to be mad at the people who screwed her over. Then the expression he had when he spotted her coming out of Degrassi the day of the fire, a mixture of joy and terror and relief so strong she could feel it rush through her like a shot of adrenaline when he and Miles flung their arms around her, almost bringing all three of them to their knees.

She's still thinking about this, her eyes glazed at the image of her mom resting on Dad's shoulder, when everyone's attention turns down the hall. Frankie looks up, and sees a nurse in dark green scrubs walking towards them.

"You're here for Hunter Hollingsworth?" she asks.

Frankie expects her dad to start working over the nurse like he would anyone else – either turning on the charm or barking out orders, whichever he thought was the best approach to getting what he wanted – but he just nods.

She nods her head. "He's all set. You can go in and see him if you want. We just need the doctor on call to sign off on the discharge papers, and you can go ahead and take him home."

Her parents nod, and the nurse turns back down the hallway, leaving them alone together again.

"You should go see him, Frankie," Miles says, and everyone turns to look at her. "Talk to him."

Frankie shifts under their stares. When she was in the car, she all she wanted was to find her brother. Now she has and she doesn't want to look at him.

"I'm sure he'd be happy to see you," Mom says, and Winston gives her a brief look that says much of the same.

Happy isn't the word Frankie would use.

Miles doesn't look away from her. He stares her down, studying her face like there's some sort of problem to be solved, and she wants to tell him that he has the wrong twin. Frankie already tried what he's doing – looking into her face and trying to find the parts of Hunter mirrored in her own expressions. As if finding parts of Hunter in herself can make her understand what's wrong inside her brother's head.

Except she's been in his head before and still doesn't understand. So how does Miles expect to do any better?

 **IV.**

The last time Hunter was in the hospital when the twins were seven, the day he fell off his bike. The day Frankie felt the jolt through her own body the instant her brother's hit the ground, and felt the same swoop of fear and hurt in her stomach the moment before impact.

Hunter's head was bleeding, which made Mom freak out, loading all three kids into her car and speeding to the hospital. Frankie took Hunter's hand and held it the entire way there, but he didn't seem afraid. He just sat quietly next to her, sweaty palm resting in her icy-cold one, as she tried to push away the clawing panic she felt in her throat whenever she saw the jagged scrape on the side of her brother's head.

He didn't break anything, and a concussion was ruled out, so the nurse put some antibacterial on the cut and bandaged it up, giving Hunter a stern reminder to always wear his helmet from now on. Then the doctor showed them an x-ray of Hunter's head, and Frankie saw the image of her brother's skull, a shadowy white orb floating against the dark background. It looked like the image of a ghost, but it was real, and when the doctor pointed at the image and said there were no cracks or damage to the bones, Frankie's own head started to ache.

There were a million pieces of them that could break.

Now, she peers into a dark, freezing room, and then sees him. Small and huddled in a paper hospital gown, his skin too pale and his eyes too big. There's an IV attached in his arm and a few machines beeping and whirring next to his bed, and he stares up at the ceiling like something up there can give him answers.

Before she can say anything or make any movement, he turns to her, not surprised she's standing in the doorway. Frankie didn't have to call his name; he just looked up the moment she spotted him, like he could feel her eyes land on him.

They hold each other's gazes for a moment, and the nervous cramp in her stomach Frankie had before she walked through the door suddenly fades away. Her head clears of the dying flower smell as she walks over to Hunter's bed, sitting in the chair beside him.

He's still watching her as she slides into the space. He doesn't look angry, but he doesn't look happy, either. His face is just blank.

"Frankenstein," is all he says.

He says her name colorlessly. Without any current of anger or hurt or even sadness.

Frankie folds her hands in her lap, lacing her cold fingers together. A part of her wants to jump up and fling her arms around him, grateful he's okay. Another part of her wants to punch him in the face for scaring her. She can't tell which one is stronger at the moment.

Except she doesn't have the energy to do either, so instead she says, "We've been looking for you. Everybody's freaking out beyond belief."

Hunter doesn't react to this.

She leans towards him. "Are you okay?"

Nothing flickers in his face.

Frankie studies the IV in his arm, the webbing of blue veins underneath his fair skin. Her twin hated needles; when they were little, Hunter would hide underneath the table every time their mom took them to the pediatrician. Even when Frankie had to get one and he didn't, he'd still cry when the needle pierced her skin, rubbing his own arm in the same place Frankie was stuck.

Once, when they were maybe six or seven, the doctor came in and Hunter did his usual "dive-under-the-table" routine, until the doctor promised him there wouldn't be any shots. But Frankie could see the nurse creep silently into the room with a syringe, so she kicked the doctor in the knees for being a liar. Their mom was so mortified she never took them back to that doctor again, and started taking each twin separately for their yearly check-ups.

"I'm tired, Frankie."

It comes out a whisper.

Frankie's throat tightens. She doesn't see Hunter anywhere in that vacant expression, but she doesn't see the Other Person, either, none of that black rage twisting his face into something ugly and dark. She doesn't know who she's looking at anymore.

How could they have shared space in the same body, once upon a time? How could they have once shared their cradles, their secrets, their thoughts? How could she know everything about someone down to their DNA and still have them be a complete stranger?

Shay told her once that just by looking at them, it wasn't obvious they were twins at first. Even Winston agreed there was something hidden in their expressions, even if he couldn't explain it clearly to her. Nobody could put their finger on it, but the more they looked, the more they saw it.

There was a certain look that always gave them away; identical shades of something that passed through their features. A gesture with their hands, or a certain eyebrow raise. A tilt of the mouth; a narrowing of the eyes. The way their whole bodies reacted to certain news; the slump of shoulders or twitch of fingers, the way their faces lit up.

Once they found it, everybody realized, _of course_ they were twins. It was so obvious, they wondered how they ever missed it.

She twists her cold hands in her lap and watches him. He watches back. The machines beep and the world shuffles and hurries along. They sit there in silence, and Frankie thinks that maybe she hasn't completely lost the old thread that used to connect the two of them, because she feels cold all over, drained and numb and blank.

Or maybe it's not him. Maybe it's just her, and the ache of being completely helpless. Wanting to do something so badly, but be paralyzed by the fact that you can't. Knowing there's nothing you can do.

 **V.**

The doctor signs the nurse's chart, and just like that, her brother is free to go. He isn't crazy enough to shoot up a school, and he isn't sick enough to need to be put in a psyche ward. He isn't evil enough to kill people, and not bad enough to be locked up in some place where they throw away the key.

It should help her to know that. It doesn't.

She doesn't move to touch her brother, now looking hunched and robotic in a black sweater and the same dark jeans he always wears. His fingers go into his pockets and his eyes stare at the ground, not looking up at any of them.

Her father and Winston can't seem to meet Hunter's eyes, either, but Mom reaches out to stroke her cheek with one hand, and it looks like it's taking every ounce of restraint Frankie didn't know Miles possessed not to throw his arms around Hunter and never let him go.

Her parents take him home, but Miles has to drive separately in his own car and drop Winston back at home. When Frankie turns to follow him to the parking lot, he stops and gives her a strange look.

"You're not going with Mom and Dad?"

She hops from foot to foot, impatient and cold. "It's sleeting. Move your butt before we all get frostbite."

Winston shoots her the same confused look. "You should probably go with your parents, Franks."

"Well, I'm not," she snaps, hurrying past them without another word.

Frankie jogs as fast as she dares through the slush to the Target parking lot, scanning the crowd of holiday shoppers until she spots where Miles parked the Mercedes. Whispering to every god she doesn't believe in that he left it open, she yanks the door and slides into the backseat. The leather is freezing underneath her, the temperature in the car low enough to where she can see her own breath as she huddles into herself, waiting for the boys to catch up. Outside the window, shining lights from the other cars in the lot bobble against the glass, bursts of white and gold that glimmer like spotlights before turning away as quickly and brilliantly as they appeared.

Miles and Winston climb into the car without a word to her or each other. They all sit there for a moment, the car still turned off and everyone silent, while more golden lights dance across the icy glass and the holiday shopping crowd attends to their own little dramas, loading their trunks full of bags and boxes.

They don't speak the whole way home.

 **VI.**

Miles pulls into Winston's neighborhood to drop him off, parking in front of the house Frankie knows as well as her own.

Every winter, they populated this front yard with dozens of snowmen and snow angels, and had more snowball fights and sledding races than she could count. In the summer, they'd run under the sprinklers in their bathing suits, shrieking and darting and trying to catch the cool water on their tongues. They fought over who got to lie in the hammock that swung between the two trees that shaded most of the yard, and dared each other to climb the branches. They played endless games of chase and freeze tag and capture-the-flag, and Mom always made Miles and Winston include her, which they hated, but did because they didn't want to get in trouble.

Her twin is a part of those memories, but always off to the side, on the edge of the action. Frankie wonders now if she actually remembers Hunter being there, or if she has so few memories that don't include him, it's automatic to just assume that he's a part of them.

Either way, Hunter was never part of their games, and they didn't want him on their teams any more than Hunter wanted to be on them. He was slow and clumsy, and ran out of breath too quickly. He hated joining their snowball fights, which inevitably ended in Frankie and the boys ganging up on her twin and ambushing him with fresh snow. He was afraid to play Marco Polo because Miles usually joked about drowning Hunter. He was afraid to climb the trees in Winston's yard, and was teased for being a baby while Frankie was already halfway up the trunk. He sunburned so easily that he didn't like wearing bathing suits, so whenever she ran around in the sprinklers with Miles and Winston, he stayed in the shade with his clothes on, elbows on his bony knees, studying them from the shadow of the hulking evergreens.

But there's one moment where he comes into frame, his small face sharp and clear in her mind. Whenever Frankie wanted to make a snow angel, Hunter would stand off to the side, waiting to take her hand and pull her to her feet. That way, she wouldn't have to ruin her creation with a handprint as she tried to stand up. She'd stamp a whole yard full of dancing creatures made of ice, and not one of them had breaks in their white wings. They were always perfect.

Frankie wonders if Hunter remembers any of this.

How long had it been since any of that had happened? She tries to remember, and comes up blank. She hasn't been to Winston's house last summer, before they broke up the first time. And whenever she was here, they were usually in the TV room cuddling on the couch, or in the den where Mr. Chu kept the Blu-ray player.

Winston turns around to give Frankie a look, one she can't interpret and doesn't want to try. He sighs like he's just made up his mind about something, then hops out of the car.

"See you in school, I guess," he says to Miles.

Miles nods. "Thanks, Chewy."

He nods, turning away from them, and doesn't look back as he is swallowed up by the warm light pouring from his front door.

Both of them are silent as they drive the last few blocks to their house and pull into the driveway. Miles has to park at the very end, right behind Dad's car. She looks over at Miles, but her brother is staring straight ahead. If he cares that Dad's here, he's not showing it.

Frankie braces herself for some kind of scene when she and Miles walk in through the kitchen door and see their parents sitting at the table in silence. She holds her breath when Dad looks up and sees the two of them, but he doesn't say anything, and Mom just runs a hand through her hair, her skin a patchy grey color. No one shouts or yells. No one throws accusations or fists into the air.

"All right," Dad says, breaking the long silence. "It's been a long night for everyone. Let's all just get some sleep. We'll figure something out in the morning."

Figure something out. Like it's a travel itinerary. Not her brother's possible sanity.

She expects Miles to say something to that effect, but he's staring into space with a far-off look in his eyes. Then he turns and heads upstairs without a word to their parents, and with a lack of anything else to do or say, Frankie goes with him.

 **VII.**

There was one winter they visited their grandparents, who lived in a house built on a cliff that plunged right into the water. She would fell asleep at night listening to waves crashing against the cliffside, wondering how the water was strong enough to make that noise against something as hard and unbreakable as rock. She tried to get her mom to explain why, because it made no sense, how it stayed curling in angry silver waves even though it was the middle of winter. Every science class she'd ever taken told her that water froze in the cold.

Except the ocean.

She had no concept for understanding it back then – something so enormous, so powerful, so strong, that it defied the laws of the universe.

Even in the dead of summer, the water was too cold to go very deep. She and Miles would dare each other to go in up to their knees, their torsos, their necks. Hunter would sit on the coast with his bucket of army men, setting up elaborate battle fields far from the waves, never leaving the rocky shore. Dad would bribe and charm and downright threaten, but he could never convince Hunter to reach the ocean.

Frankie doesn't know why she's thinking about this now. It's been years since they went to Grandma and Grandpa Hollingsworth's house. She vaguely remembers her parents saying they sold it a few years ago, so it probably isn't even theirs anymore. And they never spent much time with that set of grandparents, anyway. She was in middle school the last time she saw them, at their lake house in Deerhurst.

Come to think of it, Dad hadn't even come with them on that trip. Mom said he was too busy with work. Which made sense at the time, because her dad was always missing family trips for his job and bringing work on the vacations he did take. But now Frankie wonders if he'd just wanted to avoid being around Grandma and Grandpa Hollingsworth. She hadn't picked up on this as a kid, but figured out over the years that Dad didn't have much of a relationship with his own parents.

She leans her head against the window, and peers down at the pool cover, thinking of icecaps on the water, waves pounding relentlessly into solid rock so hard that it could wear the cliff down year after year, looking out the window and seeing the ocean spread out before her like an endless sheet of steel until it blended into the clouds.

A memory comes to her: Two little kids with salt-stiff hair and sun-peeled skin, squatting bonelessly in the low tide. They are watching a crab burrow itself into the squelching sand under their bare feet, and want it to come back out. They poke at the hole with their fingers and dig the sand away, but someone else comes over and asks them what they're doing.

When they tell him, the man frowns.

 _Leave it alone, you two. It's more afraid of you than anything else, and if it's afraid it might hurt you._

The boy is still poking at the hole. _If he wasn't scared, would he come out?_

 _I don't know, Hunter. But leave the crab alone, okay? He's going back to his family._

Her phone is sitting on her nightstand, plugged in and charging. When she grabs it, she sees a new message from a number she doesn't recognize:

 _Hi Frankie, it's Yael. I was wondering if you'd heard any news on Hunter. Is he okay? Is there anything I can do to help?_

She stares at the message for a moment, wondering exactly how she's supposed to answer that.

It's the middle of the night, she reminds herself. Nobody would be awake right now. They'll run into each other at school anyway. Yael waited all night for a response; she can wait a few more hours.

Would Mom make her and Miles go to school? Probably, Frankie thinks, wishing she could just stay home. Everything from that part of her world feels like it isn't real. Spending her study period giggling with Lola, doing Chinese vocab flashcards with Shay, getting lunch with Jonah at the pizzeria down the street from school…it all feels too far away to care about. And Hunter wasn't allowed to go – not until the school board decides what to do about the text messages on Tristan's phone from the night of the Snow Ball.

But her parents can't just wait around until then to make a decision about Hunter. Not after what happened tonight. Hunter needed help NOW.

So what should they do next?

Frankie sets her phone down and lies on her bed, burying her face in the pillow. She's too awake now to fall back asleep, her mind replaying the evening. She tries pulling the covers over her, but they felt like sandpaper against her skin, so she kicks them off and stares at the ceiling.

There's a light knocking on her door, and then Miles pokes his head in.

"You alright, Frankenstein?" he whispers.

She shrugs one shoulder, not meeting his eyes. "Are Mom and Dad still talking?"

Miles takes that as a sign he can come in, and leans against her closed door. "Talking really isn't the right word. More like, Mom is talking, and Dad doesn't want to hear it."

"Did you check in on Hunter?" she asks.

Miles nods. "He was in the shower. I'll wait til Dad leaves, then go check on him again. Make sure he's okay."

She frowns. Her father has been living in a condo across town since her parents separated, but for some reason, she's disappointed he wasn't staying the night. Frankie doesn't know why, since Dad hasn't spent the night here in almost seven months, but can't help feeling frustrated he's still acting like it's business as usual.

Frankie smooths the rumpled covers with one hand. Miles had slept here too, she remembered, the day of the fire. The three of them came home from that diner and piled onto her bed still in their smoky clothes, watching _Game of Thrones_ until they couldn't keep their eyes open. While Hunter fell asleep at the foot of her bed, Miles curled himself in the lounge chair she'd inherited from her mother during one of her redecorating sprees. Frankie pulled one of her extra blankets out of the closet to cover him with, remembering how she saw him in that crowd and knew she was safe, and when she reached him he held on tight.

"What are we supposed to do next?" she asks.

Miles sighs, sounding very tired, and leans against her door. There's something about the expression on his face that bothers her, and it takes a moment to realize what it is: Hunter makes that exact same face.

"We'll figure something out."

She frowns. "You're sure about that?"

Miles shrugs. "A few weeks ago, I was stealing pills out of Grade 10 backpacks and passing out in bushes. Now I'm not. Last year you almost died in a fire, and you survived. Hunter needs help, and we'll get it for him. You'll be there. Me, too. He'll get better."

Frankie looks up at him. His eyes meet hers.

"You know," he says, a small smile on his face, "I was so jealous of you and Hunter when I was little. The whole 'twin' thing. The way you guys were with each other, it made me want to be one of you. Or have my own twin."

Frankie blinks. "You never told me that."

Miles shrugs. His eyes find a picture sitting on her dresser, one of her with Shay and Lola at the twins' Gatsby-themed birthday. They're standing at the candy table, blowing kisses at the camera.

Hunter had darted into his room as soon as the guests started showing up, but before that their mom was cooing too over their outfits and kept gushing about how handsome her brother looked, ruffling his hair and making Hunter's face burn. She wouldn't let him go unless he stood in for a few pictures with Frankie.

He agreed, begrudgingly, standing with Frankie in front of the pool fountain while their mom snapped dozens of pictures on her phone, ordering them to turn this way, then that way, then in this pose, then another pose, until finally Hunter frowned and walked back towards the house.

"You said a few pictures," he said. "You got them. Now can I please go play video games?"

Mom put her hands on her hips. "In a minute, Hunter. Now, go stand next to your sister."

When Hunter still didn't budge, Mom relented. "Okay, fine. One more picture, and then you can go. But you have to take one more."

Hunter rolled his eyes, but slumped back to Frankie's side, holding her waist and pulling his lips into a tense smile. He barely gave their mom a chance to say, "Okay, one, two, three, cheese!" before pulling away from Frankie, darting for the safety of his bedroom.

Frankie had looked at the pictures later that night on her mother's phone, texting the best ones to herself to post on Facerange. But when she saw that last one, she couldn't stop staring at it.

He's got his arm around her waist and his face tugged into a half-smile, and Frankie has one arm looped around her brother's neck, pulling them to where their foreheads are almost touching. In her heels, they're almost the same height, and with their heads bent so close together, it's almost like you can't tell where one head of dark hair ends and the other begins. Frankie is smiling with her mouth open while a stray breeze blows loose hair in her face, and Hunter's lips are closed over his teeth, his eyes half-closed.

They'd never looked more alike than they did right then, in that picture. It's nothing in their smiles or their poses or the way they're looking at the camera that makes them look so similar, but one look at this picture and anyone could tell she and Hunter are twins.

"Why were you jealous?" she asks, because Miles is still looking at that picture and her chest hurts like she needs to cry but she _won't,_ she can't, and if they sit here in the silence any longer the whole night is going to hit her like a ton of bricks and she can't handle it, so she squeezes her eyes shut and wills it to go away.

He looks at her briefly, then back at the picture.

"You guys always had each other," he says. "No matter what. You had that…weird connection thing, that twin thing. You know what I mean. Like, even when you guys weren't together, you weren't apart."

He crosses his arms over his chest, frowning.

"I wanted that," he says, more to himself than to Frankie. "I used to feel so left out. Like I didn't belong in my family."

Frankie makes herself breathe, slowly, and it feels like fire licking through her but she doesn't feel like the walls are going to collapse in on her anymore.

"You know, everyone always ends up leaving, or disappointing you, or walking away because they can't handle your shit."

He looks up at her, and all of a sudden Frankie sees the man he will become; one who looks so much like their father.

"But you and Hunter were never like that," he says. "You just got each other."

He stares at the picture for a long moment, then shakes his head and sighs.

Miles is the best parts of their dad, she thinks. The part of him that took Frankie out to the tennis courts early on the weekends, just the two of them, so they could spend time together. The part who used to make pancakes on Sunday mornings; who taught all three of his kids how to whistle. The part of Dad who stood with her in the tides of some nameless ocean, on a coast she barely remembers, and told her she was a mermaid.

She wants to ask if he still gets jealous of not being a twin, if he still feels left out. But Miles just turns to her with a tired smile.

"I just wanted to make sure you were hanging in there," he says.

She doesn't know how to answer that, so she just says, "goodnight."

Miles grins. "Goodnight, Frankenstein."

He leans forward, and before she knows what's happening he kisses her hair, the same way he did the day of the fire. They were surrounded by firemen and news crews and cheerleaders running around shrieking and crying, but the three of them walked away from the wreckage shoulder to shoulder.

They had nobody but each other that day, and maybe they'd all been through hard things and it was going to keep being rough for who knew how long. But on the day of the fire, she was there and her brothers were there and they were all together, and that was always the best place she could be.

 **VIII.**

Whether it's real or not, Frankie has no way of knowing for sure, but either way, there's a memory that goes like this:

 _They are underwater where it's too deep to touch the bottom, hiding just under the surface of the waves. Light hovers above them and the world thuds in her ears as she kicks to stay afloat, feeling her heartbeat all the way to her fingertips. Mommy and Miles and even Daddy can't make Hunter get into a pool, but he followed her out into the ocean._

 _Her eyes are squeezed shut but she can still sense the motion of her twin nearby, his arms and legs mirroring her own motions in the pulsing darkness. She can feel him there without needing to look, and can tell he's looking at her and feeling the same._

 _Without light or sight or sound, she can still find him. He is there in front of her, and she is looking right at him._

 _She can feel it before it happens; her brother's fingers, reaching out to hers._


End file.
